Ritika Ruminates

Image source- Electric Literature I know you would see similar blogposts in many sites. But here's my experience with having to lend my books and not getting it back in same condition (or not at all). Being a hardcore book lover, books are one of the reason of my heartbeats and with our books away, we feel empty inside our soul. Even if that book wasn't so close to us. There are many reasons and personal experiences that I have (almost) stopped lending books to people. Books are mostly lent only to those who buy books of their own and share the same passion for books, keeping them safely like a treasure. So here are some experiences- Not getting book back at all or really really late - I had lent a book to someone I used to know and I hadn't had gotten the book for months. If you borrow someone's book, read the book asap and give them the book back in same condition. And if you happen to carelessly lost the book (it dare not be a signed copy!), purchase another unused c...

Image source- SheThePeople After women being asked (a.k.a pressurize, forced or manipulated) to marry, the big another pretty unrealistic expectation of society is for women to drastically change themselves into some other woman altogether. Those distant relatives whose face you see once in three years, neighbors and the society, and sometimes even parents and in-laws start acting like they own the woman and have every right to pass judgments on her, and give advice she never asked for in the first place. But what is up with asking women to change so drastically after marriage? And why aren’t men expected to change either after getting married? A few changes here and there are expected and understandable after the big step in life. But asking or expecting a woman to change altogether after marriage is something very unrealistic and toxic, which might even end up causing mental health issues in the woman and a bruised ego to the society if she denies to follow. Not just the women who ar...

Rapes and sexual harrassments were all very heartbreaking and shocking, but what's recently turning into worse is that  in many recent cases, minors are perpetrators too.  The innocent souls are turning into rapists just as well. Where is the society even going? With the new technology and more open-mindedness with the passing time, it was expected that rape rates would go down. But what's disheartening is that not only adults, but now even minors are raping others. What's the use of all the education if this is where the minors of our country are heading towards? With early access to social media and absence of age appropriate sex education at our homes and school, the children are now getting easy access to adult contents on social media sites, which are unfortunately majority of the times sexually objectifying, misogynist or phobic towards LGBTQIA+ community. The more content we consume of, we subconsciously start thinking on similar lines. If a minor gets access to meme...

Image source: Hidden Gems Books Recently I have came across this reel which shows where you can read the book for free or sites which gives free PDFs of novels. But why is such that we expect books for free? Many of the free book apps that you would see on Playstore or Apple Store, that gives books for free wouldn't pay royalties to authors. Earlier, there was this famous app named AnyBooks. I am guilty of using it earlier too, but then stopped using it (after seeing IG stories of author Preeti Shenoy about it). The worse are the PDF versions of the books available on the internet and Telegram for free. Both of these are piracy of a book, and so a punishable act. And disrespect to the author's hardwork in writing that book. On Twitter, once I had even saw someone's tweet saying that books are to be available for free. But why? An author puts so much hardwork and creativity into the book and they deserve to get the money. Authors make their living with words and ...

Image Source- VideoHive Recently,  UP Women Commission member have stated that girls using phone have lead to rapes . What more shocking is that this statement comes from a woman herself. Along with blaming girls for using phones, she has even blamed 'carelessness' of mothers for increase in rape cases. Question that arises is- aren't even babies to school girls to old age women who don't use phones, have been victims of rape? What the phones have to do with rapes? Yes, online sexual harrassments (in forms of morphed pics, sending non consenual pics of genitals, etc) do happen due to phone and social media. But if both boys and girls are taught to be respectful of others and their consent and be precautions on social media, then it would be reduced a lot.  About her eloping statement, not everyone elopes. And some do due to controlling and toxic parents who refuses to accept their relationship due to societal standards, caste and religious differences. Checking kid'...

India is obsessed with babies (1.3 billion population totally proves it). You would find random people giving married couple unasked advice to have babies, even if the couple is just 1 month old. From the vegetable vendor to the security guard to distant relatives & judgemental neighbours who have no life of their own, whose adult kids are themselves struggling with parenting their newborns (or their adult kids have moved out due to their frustration with parents pestering about having kids). But whats the obsession with asking (or pressurizing, manipulating etc) others to have babies? Why are women treated as a baby making machines? What's with the unasked advice to have kids? If anyone even dares to ask the person back why they need to have a kid (cause you can't talk back to elders, credit to Indian 'sanskaar'), there would be answers, some even comical. "They will look after you when you will get old" . Umm, what's the guarantee they would? Childre...

Image source- Manubhai Jewellers Recently, I came across a Instagram story by  Saadhana KM  about toe rings, and when I went through her profile, I found various posts and stories explaining how sexist the culture and expectations are. And I couldn't agree enough to how sexist and controlling the practice of expecting women to wear several accessories and sacred threads all her life is.  This was the story- Image source- Saadhana KM In Hindu rituals, a woman has to wear five signs of marital status – the Mangalsutra, toe rings, Kumkum, bangles and a nose ring. Of these five, Mangalsutra is the most important. In India, Hindu married women wear it as an auspicious thread of goodwill and love. The  Hindu culture also believes that a woman wearing a Mangalsutra, should never part with it until her husband’s death. And if the thread of the Mangalsutra breaks for some reason, it is considered to be a bad omen. Worn as a symbol of marital status, it...

Image source- floweraura.com After  Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed petition by runaway couple for protection stating live-in is morally and socially unacceptable , the question comes up - even though live-in relationships is legal in India, why is it looked down upon morally and socially in society?  With new era, comes new trends. How romantic relationships works, also changes. Earlier it was male dominance in the relationship, but now there is gender equality in  modern-day relationships . The institution of marriage which was very much patriarchal earlier is now slowly changing into feminist among open-minded modern couples. Live-in is a growing relationship choice among modern couples. Looked at as trial for marriage to test the compatibility under the same roof or just wanting to stay together in serious relationship. Most couples do wish to get married after live-in relationship and look at live-in as compatibility test, because living together lets you kno...

Image source- Wikipedia I do not write reviews on my blog about books or films, but this movie has intrigued me to. The Great Indian Kitchen is a Malayalam movie on Amazon Prime Video which very well depicts the patriarchy in Indian households.  Though the movie is in Malayalam language, subtitles are available in English for people who cannot understand Malayalam language. Set in a South Indian town or rural area, it shows the male privilege prevelant in the the small towns and villages in India (also in metropolitan cities). The female lead character, an educated woman and dancer, raised in Bahrain, is married to a guy in a regressive family. The movie shows her struggle of fitting in to a family where she doesn't belong in the first place. The instances in movie like expecting the girl to hand the toothbrush to her father-in-law, make rice in firewood, having to manually clean one person's clothes seperately, etc She is also expected to clean up the mess at the...

Image source- time.com Some days ago, I came across the question on Quora - 'What is legal but feels illegal in India?'. The thing that came to my mind as an answer was- abortion. If you have had a traumatic history of abortion or simply against the idea of it because of your blind beliefs irrespective of facts, you can simply stop reading here only. Abortion is considered as a sin in India and across many religions and countries. Where  parenthood  is considered as the main task to tick off in life's to-do list, on the other hand, abortion is not considered as a option and a choice. But why is abortion considered in a bad light? I now wonder, in my first year of  college, that though we had been taught about reproduction in biology in our school, why were we never taught anything related to abortion? Not everyone wants to have a child, or a pregnancy can be result of sexual abuse as well. If they can mention reproduction, so why not abortion? I will write dow...